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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
earth and planetary sciences
First farmers in the Central African rainforest: A view from southern Cameroon
Quaternary International, Volume 249, Year 2012
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Description
Agriculture was introduced into the Central African rainforest from the drier West African savanna, in concert with a major climatic change that amplified seasonality just after 2500 BP. The savanna crop pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), dated to 2400-2200 BP, could only be cultivated due to the development of a distinct dry season. Increasing seasonality and the replacement of mature forests by pioneer formations is indicated by Trema orientalis in the pollen diagram of Nyabessan after 2400 BP. However, charcoal data do not point to the existence of savannas in South Cameroon during this period, but rather to a mosaic of mature and pioneer forests. The early rainforest farmers combined the cultivation of pearl millet with the exploitation of wild oil-containing tree fruits, such as oil palm and Canarium. The existence of pioneer formations that can be easily cut favoured the establishment of shifting cultivation. The archaeobotanical finds fit into a linguistic scenario of West-Bantu speakers making the cultivation of pearl millet one of their food production strategies before expanding further to the South. The reconstructed inherited pearl millet vocabulary for the early phases of Bantu language history provides strong circumstantial evidence for an overlap of the major stages of the Bantu expansion with the dispersal of food production. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.
Authors & Co-Authors
Neumann, Katharina
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Goethe-universität Frankfurt am Main
Bostoen, Koen
Belgium, Ghent
Universiteit Gent
Höhn, Alexa
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Goethe-universität Frankfurt am Main
Kahlheber, Stefanie
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Goethe-universität Frankfurt am Main
Ngomanda, Alfred
Germany, Frankfurt am Main
Goethe-universität Frankfurt am Main
Gabon, Libreville
Iret/cenarest
Tchiengué, Barthelémy
Cameroon, Yaounde
Herbier National du Cameroon
Statistics
Citations: 107
Authors: 6
Affiliations: 4
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1016/j.quaint.2011.03.024
ISSN:
10406182
Research Areas
Environmental
Food Security
Study Locations
Cameroon